PvT 3Gate Stalker/Sentry Pressure on Xel'Naga

This is a build I have been testing and optimizing for a while now. The motive behind it is pressuring a Terran fast expansion (gasless or 2rax fe) but it can also press up the ramp if the Terran attempts to tech too fast without sufficient defenses.

The build centers around getting 6 stalkers and 3 sentries to your opponents natural at 6:30. This is possible only by lining up the timings of your sentry production, warpgate research, and 2 additional gateways. It took a lot of testing, but I did all the work for you

Xel'Naga Caverns offers an enormous natural which allows the build to be extremely damaging because bunkers are not as effective with good forcefields. This can be used on other maps as well, but it is especially effective here for the above reason. For now, let's take a look at the natural on Xel'Naga Caverns and ways we can exploit it.

Here we have the typical bunker placement. These bunkers keep the terran safe from a frontal attack and guard the ramp. However, they do not cover stalkers and sentries slipping up the left side of the left path nor warped-in units coming from Tasteless's secret hallway.

Once you begin pushing at the back of the natural, the terran will most likely try to set up a bunker where the black rectangle is. You can cut off the movement of infantry units by placing a forcefield inbetween the geyser and the command center and between the bunker and the vespene geyser in most situations. The black blob is the money spot. Here, you can shut down mining at the expansion and funnel infantry units around the geyser and forcefield them to remove them from the field piece by piece.

This build is extremely strong against fast expansion builds, as noted above. It is very important that you can eliminate certain builds from what terran can do in order to make the build work. For instance, a 2 gas build is never going to be a fast expansion build, so if you scout 2 early gases you can scrap this build for that particular game. Stealing your opponent's gas will make him more likely to pick a fast expansion build, but he is not necessarily forced down this path.

You should keep your initial scouting probe alive to check if the terran is building his CC at the natural, but if he is not you might need to send your first stalker out to poke at the ramp. Most of the time this will get him to show his hand. If you just see a bunker and marines, he is probably not expanding quickly. But if you see a tech lab and maybe even a reaper if you are so lucky, there is a good chance his is doing an FE build. While this build is strong against FE builds, it is not horrible against 1base builds so don't feel like you can only use this if you are 100% sure of what he is doing.

The build only works when you use your chrono boosts in the way that followsChrono Boosting+ Show Spoiler +

2 on Nexus (11 after pylon, 13 after building gateway)1 on first stalker, 1 on warpgate research3 on sentries, commencing after you have placed your 2nd and 3rd gateways

At ~5:45, your 3rd sentry, your warpgate tech, and your 2 additional gateways will all be finishing all at the same time if you time the build out as I have posted it. At this point, you transform all 3 of your gateways to warpgates and warp in 3 stalkers. You should have ~375 minerals just as your warpgates come up, which is pretty convenient ^^

At ~6:30, warp in 3 zealots OR 3 stalkers at the proxy pylon. Scout the Terran natural first. If he has expanded, add stalkers and sentries. If he did not, warp in zealots if you want to pressure the ramp or warp in NOTHING and take your natural or start a robotics facility if you suspect cloaked banshees.

This build should crush any fast expansion the terran player chooses with good stalker control and forcefield micro. The terran will be fighting with infantry alongside his bunkers. If you pull back and drag his bio a pixel or 2 beyond the bunker of line of bunkers, forcefield them out and fight only those units.

Then, once you have killed off a lot of the infantry units, go for the bunker and forcefield reinforcements out of range so only your zealots can be hit by them

If you push up the ramp after seeing no expansion and the terran went for a tank expansion or a tank + bio + raven or banshee all in, you won't be able to kill him any time soon. You can still pressure the expansion with stalkers outside of the range of tanks because he might not have mauraders at this point. If you scout the all in, your best bet might be to transition to 3gate robo colossus off of one base, as scvs are pretty darn good against non-aoe gateway forces.

Note- The proxy pylon can be placed at 30 or 35 as listed in the build order. You might want to place it farther away from the vegetation than shown in the images for safety. The distance won't really matter too much in terms of reinforcing because you engage on your own terms with proper forcefields.

This is by no means an all-in. If the terran expands, this build allows you to do enough damage to the point you can secure your own expansion while he is not safe to mine from his. This is simply meant to apply economic pressure by whittling down the Terran's scv/infantry numbers and forcing him to pull scvs to repair bunkers thus making his expansion and scv mining significantly less efficient. In the meanwhile, you are expanding, teching, and continuing to make probes

I'm obviously not the first person to ever skip the initial zealot and make 3 gateways against terran, but I don't think anyone has optimized it and made a thread about it xD

Feel free to post and let me know what you think or if you have anything to add to the OP.

On February 28 2011 13:34 Rhythm.102 wrote:This looks identical to the build that RAGEWelmu does :/my guess is you got the idea from him.

I can assure you I didn't go rummaging through replay packs to find a strategy to plagiarize. I myself worked on the timings so that my 3rd sentry, warpgate tech and 2nd/3rd gates would finish at exactly the same time. I find your claim insulting. Thanks for your contribution.

On February 28 2011 12:21 Shifft wrote:I would be interested in the advantages of doing this build over a 3 gate sentry expand -> 6 gate timing (MC build).

I find that the 6 gate will always crush a bio-based fast expansion from Terran if executed correctly, which is basically what the goal of this build is. It also lets you get your expansion up quickly no matter what, giving you options to adapt to heavier tech builds. With your build you are warping in 4 stalkers regardless of scouting, while with a sentry expand you will get 5-6 sentries up early instead of 3, letting them build up more energy in case of an all-in.

I guess I'm just not seeing the advantage to attempting to pressure/kill them this early rather than setting yourself up for a safe midgame while still outright killing the same set of strategies from Terran as this build does.

I suppose you could pressure with this and transition into and expo and then 3 additional gateways as you are not all-in at this point. I think the only difference is you make 3 additional units when your second round of warpgate cool downs come up instead of a nexus so your nexus would be a minute later than it would be with a standard 6gate.

The advantage of those 3 additional units and whatever you warp in thereafter is pressure. You're not waiting around for a timing, you are doing economic damage while securing your own expansion and halting a lot of his mining time

On February 28 2011 15:40 Welmu wrote:Nice! You figured out almost exactly same build I use :D.

I would add in strenghts that it prevents/blocks any kind of push that Terran try to do (1rax expand/2rax/3rax).

Also would add to weaknesses that it doesn't work in too close spawns (lt close/metalo close/steppes for example). Terran's 1marauder/1marine/1-2SCV pressure hits in your base, before you have even sentry out.

Also I like to poke with first stalker on Terran's ramp to scout, but everybody has own style^^

Yep that's why I labled it as Xel'naga. The sentry still barely makes it out and it is kind of tough against extremely early 2rax pressure like one of those proxy tech lab rax builds but you can pull probes and be safe once your additional sentries come. I've had some success with it on meta and LT but you play it out a bit differently. On meta the natural is still pretty wide open so you can do a good bit of damage but on LT you are pretty much throwing units at the bunkers while ff'ing behind them. Neither situation is as good as the one you find on XNC though ^^

Some people were saying they saw you use a similar build. Any huge differences you can spot?

On February 28 2011 17:42 sleepingdog wrote:Looks like a really nice build, will definitely take a look at the replays when I get home from work - I'm a zealot/sentry/immortal player and don't have much experience with early stalker/sentry play.

What I'd like to know (sorry if one replay shows exactly this!): how does this build hold up against early aggression from terran? Speaking about something like the very common 1-2 scvs, 1 marine, 2 marauders.Your build skips the first zealot and stalker/sentry won't be able to hold them off long enough....or what am I missing here? Obviously this isn't an issue on, like, meta cross position, I'm talking about closer rush distances...which unfortunately are prevalent anyways.

PS. recommending you for getting highlighted, your posts/threads are great

Yeah those early pushes are harder to parry without the zealot, but on XNC you are less likely to see this kind of push because of the rush distance. And if they still do it the infantry takes quite a while to trudge across the map so you get some help from the map there. I'd have to do some testing to figure out the timings on all the kinds of 2rax pressure terran can do and how many units you'll have when it comes and then update the OP. In close spawns on other maps I wouldn't recommend using this. I opt for the 1gate-robo into 3gate-robo in those circumstances and get that zealot out quickly myself.

Thank you for your kind words

On February 28 2011 23:55 Antimage wrote:There have been lots of variations of this floating around. I don't know how I feel about relying on a proxy pylon within your early-game build - I usually just walk my army to their base then build a pylon there afterward.

And I think Axslav has been doing this for a while now too.

If you don't proxy your 7th 8th 9th units won't get there very quickly as your warpgate cool downs come up the 2nd time once your units are pretty much at the natural. Not a huge deal but especially if you warp in zealots to try to pressure the ramp they take a very long time to get from base to base. You could put the pylon in the middle of the map or by their gold to be a bit more conservative with it but I usually dont have an issue placing the pylon a full screen from the vegetation

This is a build I have been testing and optimizing for a while now. The motive behind it is pressuring a Terran fast expansion (gasless or 2rax fe) but it can also press up the ramp if the Terran attempts to tech too fast without sufficient defenses.

The build centers around getting 6 stalkers and 3 sentries to your opponents natural at 6:30. This is possible only by lining up the timings of your sentry production, warpgate research, and 2 additional gateways. It took a lot of testing, but I did all the work for you

Xel'Naga Caverns offers an enormous natural which allows the build to be extremely damaging because bunkers are not as effective with good forcefields. This can be used on other maps as well, but it is especially effective here for the above reason. For now, let's take a look at the natural on Xel'Naga Caverns and ways we can exploit it.

Here we have the typical bunker placement. These bunkers keep the terran safe from a frontal attack and guard the ramp. However, they do not cover stalkers and sentries slipping up the left side of the left path nor warped-in units coming from Tasteless's secret hallway.

Once you begin pushing at the back of the natural, the terran will most likely try to set up a bunker where the black rectangle is. You can cut off the movement of infantry units by placing a forcefield inbetween the geyser and the command center and between the bunker and the vespene geyser in most situations. The black blob is the money spot. Here, you can shut down mining at the expansion and funnel infantry units around the geyser and forcefield them to remove them from the field piece by piece.

This build is extremely strong against fast expansion builds, as noted above. It is very important that you can eliminate certain builds from what terran can do in order to make the build work. For instance, a 2 gas build is never going to be a fast expansion build, so if you scout 2 early gases you can scrap this build for that particular game. Stealing your opponent's gas will make him more likely to pick a fast expansion build, but he is not necessarily forced down this path.

You should keep your initial scouting probe alive to check if the terran is building his CC at the natural, but if he is not you might need to send your first stalker out to poke at the ramp. Most of the time this will get him to show his hand. If you just see a bunker and marines, he is probably not expanding quickly. But if you see a tech lab and maybe even a reaper if you are so lucky, there is a good chance his is doing an FE build. While this build is strong against FE builds, it is not horrible against 1base builds so don't feel like you can only use this if you are 100% sure of what he is doing.

The build only works when you use your chrono boosts in the way that followsChrono Boosting+ Show Spoiler +

2 on Nexus (11 after pylon, 13 after building gateway)1 on first stalker, 1 on warpgate research3 on sentries, commencing after you have placed your 2nd and 3rd gateways

At ~5:45, your 3rd sentry, your warpgate tech, and your 2 additional gateways will all be finishing all at the same time if you time the build out as I have posted it. At this point, you transform all 3 of your gateways to warpgates and warp in 3 stalkers. You should have ~375 minerals just as your warpgates come up, which is pretty convenient ^^

At ~6:30, warp in 3 zealots OR 3 stalkers at the proxy pylon. Scout the Terran natural first. If he has expanded, add stalkers and sentries. If he did not, warp in zealots if you want to pressure the ramp or warp in NOTHING and take your natural or start a robotics facility if you suspect cloaked banshees.

This build should crush any fast expansion the terran player chooses with good stalker control and forcefield micro. The terran will be fighting with infantry alongside his bunkers. If you pull back and drag his bio a pixel or 2 beyond the bunker of line of bunkers, forcefield them out and fight only those units.

Then, once you have killed off a lot of the infantry units, go for the bunker and forcefield reinforcements out of range so only your zealots can be hit by them

If you push up the ramp after seeing no expansion and the terran went for a tank expansion or a tank + bio + raven or banshee all in, you won't be able to kill him any time soon. You can still pressure the expansion with stalkers outside of the range of tanks because he might not have mauraders at this point. If you scout the all in, your best bet might be to transition to 3gate robo colossus off of one base, as scvs are pretty darn good against non-aoe gateway forces.

Note- The proxy pylon can be placed at 30 or 35 as listed in the build order. You might want to place it farther away from the vegetation than shown in the images for safety. The distance won't really matter too much in terms of reinforcing because you engage on your own terms with proper forcefields.

This is by no means an all-in. If the terran expands, this build allows you to do enough damage to the point you can secure your own expansion while he is not safe to mine from his. This is simply meant to apply economic pressure by whittling down the Terran's scv/infantry numbers and forcing him to pull scvs to repair bunkers thus making his expansion and scv mining significantly less efficient. In the meanwhile, you are expanding, teching, and continuing to make probes

I'm obviously not the first person to ever skip the initial zealot and make 3 gateways against terran, but I don't think anyone has optimized it and made a thread about it xD

Feel free to post and let me know what you think or if you have anything to add to the OP.

I would be interested in the advantages of doing this build over a 3 gate sentry expand -> 6 gate timing (MC build).

I find that the 6 gate will always crush a bio-based fast expansion from Terran if executed correctly, which is basically what the goal of this build is. It also lets you get your expansion up quickly no matter what, giving you options to adapt to heavier tech builds. With your build you are warping in 4 stalkers regardless of scouting, while with a sentry expand you will get 5-6 sentries up early instead of 3, letting them build up more energy in case of an all-in.

I guess I'm just not seeing the advantage to attempting to pressure/kill them this early rather than setting yourself up for a safe midgame while still outright killing the same set of strategies from Terran as this build does.

I would add in strenghts that it prevents/blocks any kind of push that Terran try to do (1rax expand/2rax/3rax).

Also would add to weaknesses that it doesn't work in too close spawns (lt close/metalo close/steppes for example). Terran's 1marauder/1marine/1-2SCV pressure hits in your base, before you have even sentry out.

Also I like to poke with first stalker on Terran's ramp to scout, but everybody has own style^^

This is a build I have been testing and optimizing for a while now. The motive behind it is pressuring a Terran fast expansion (gasless or 2rax fe) but it can also press up the ramp if the Terran attempts to tech too fast without sufficient defenses.

The build centers around getting 6 stalkers and 3 sentries to your opponents natural at 6:30. This is possible only by lining up the timings of your sentry production, warpgate research, and 2 additional gateways. It took a lot of testing, but I did all the work for you

Xel'Naga Caverns offers an enormous natural which allows the build to be extremely damaging because bunkers are not as effective with good forcefields. This can be used on other maps as well, but it is especially effective here for the above reason. For now, let's take a look at the natural on Xel'Naga Caverns and ways we can exploit it.

Here we have the typical bunker placement. These bunkers keep the terran safe from a frontal attack and guard the ramp. However, they do not cover stalkers and sentries slipping up the left side of the left path nor warped-in units coming from Tasteless's secret hallway.

Once you begin pushing at the back of the natural, the terran will most likely try to set up a bunker where the black rectangle is. You can cut off the movement of infantry units by placing a forcefield inbetween the geyser and the command center and between the bunker and the vespene geyser in most situations. The black blob is the money spot. Here, you can shut down mining at the expansion and funnel infantry units around the geyser and forcefield them to remove them from the field piece by piece.

This build is extremely strong against fast expansion builds, as noted above. It is very important that you can eliminate certain builds from what terran can do in order to make the build work. For instance, a 2 gas build is never going to be a fast expansion build, so if you scout 2 early gases you can scrap this build for that particular game. Stealing your opponent's gas will make him more likely to pick a fast expansion build, but he is not necessarily forced down this path.

You should keep your initial scouting probe alive to check if the terran is building his CC at the natural, but if he is not you might need to send your first stalker out to poke at the ramp. Most of the time this will get him to show his hand. If you just see a bunker and marines, he is probably not expanding quickly. But if you see a tech lab and maybe even a reaper if you are so lucky, there is a good chance his is doing an FE build. While this build is strong against FE builds, it is not horrible against 1base builds so don't feel like you can only use this if you are 100% sure of what he is doing.

The build only works when you use your chrono boosts in the way that followsChrono Boosting+ Show Spoiler +

2 on Nexus (11 after pylon, 13 after building gateway)1 on first stalker, 1 on warpgate research3 on sentries, commencing after you have placed your 2nd and 3rd gateways

At ~5:45, your 3rd sentry, your warpgate tech, and your 2 additional gateways will all be finishing all at the same time if you time the build out as I have posted it. At this point, you transform all 3 of your gateways to warpgates and warp in 3 stalkers. You should have ~375 minerals just as your warpgates come up, which is pretty convenient ^^

At ~6:30, warp in 3 zealots OR 3 stalkers at the proxy pylon. Scout the Terran natural first. If he has expanded, add stalkers and sentries. If he did not, warp in zealots if you want to pressure the ramp or warp in NOTHING and take your natural or start a robotics facility if you suspect cloaked banshees.

This build should crush any fast expansion the terran player chooses with good stalker control and forcefield micro. The terran will be fighting with infantry alongside his bunkers. If you pull back and drag his bio a pixel or 2 beyond the bunker of line of bunkers, forcefield them out and fight only those units.

Then, once you have killed off a lot of the infantry units, go for the bunker and forcefield reinforcements out of range so only your zealots can be hit by them

If you push up the ramp after seeing no expansion and the terran went for a tank expansion or a tank + bio + raven or banshee all in, you won't be able to kill him any time soon. You can still pressure the expansion with stalkers outside of the range of tanks because he might not have mauraders at this point. If you scout the all in, your best bet might be to transition to 3gate robo colossus off of one base, as scvs are pretty darn good against non-aoe gateway forces.

Note- The proxy pylon can be placed at 30 or 35 as listed in the build order. You might want to place it farther away from the vegetation than shown in the images for safety. The distance won't really matter too much in terms of reinforcing because you engage on your own terms with proper forcefields.

This is by no means an all-in. If the terran expands, this build allows you to do enough damage to the point you can secure your own expansion while he is not safe to mine from his. This is simply meant to apply economic pressure by whittling down the Terran's scv/infantry numbers and forcing him to pull scvs to repair bunkers thus making his expansion and scv mining significantly less efficient. In the meanwhile, you are expanding, teching, and continuing to make probes

I'm obviously not the first person to ever skip the initial zealot and make 3 gateways against terran, but I don't think anyone has optimized it and made a thread about it xD

Feel free to post and let me know what you think or if you have anything to add to the OP.

Looks like a really nice build, will definitely take a look at the replays when I get home from work - I'm a zealot/sentry/immortal player and don't have much experience with early stalker/sentry play.

What I'd like to know (sorry if one replay shows exactly this!): how does this build hold up against early aggression from terran? Speaking about something like the very common 1-2 scvs, 1 marine, 2 marauders.Your build skips the first zealot and stalker/sentry won't be able to hold them off long enough....or what am I missing here? Obviously this isn't an issue on, like, meta cross position, I'm talking about closer rush distances...which unfortunately are prevalent anyways.

PS. recommending you for getting highlighted, your posts/threads are great

There have been lots of variations of this floating around. I don't know how I feel about relying on a proxy pylon within your early-game build - I usually just walk my army to their base then build a pylon there afterward.

People need to be talking about this build more. It's one of the scariest openings for a terran at the moment, especially when you look at how hard it is to defend an expansion on the new ladder maps. If you can delay their expo enough and set up your own, it will be almost impossible for terran to defend against the 6 gate follow up.

During practice session, I discovered very good build against zerg. -Bisu[Shield]

You can make the 31 pylon in your base, then another proxy no later then ~6:00 if you want those proxy units asap. Really anytime you want proxy units asap its a bit vulnerable, since latest units from base will not be there yet. So unless map blocks access to hitting pylon, you just make a judgment how far away from them is enough.

Can take probes off 2nd gas and warp in 3zealots after 4stalker/3sent for ~6:40expo with 28probes for stronger later. Or of course keep on gas/keep warping units for stronger attack.

If you want to do mass unit attack cut at 36probes, add 2gates, boost gates and stay on 1 gas for even mix of zealot/stalker. Attack ~11min ~110psi.

I guess this is similar to a 3 gate expo except it delays the nexus for an earlier timing. My question is, does this earlier timing help a whole lot to be worth delaying your nexus?

Because the normal 3gate expo seems to be so streamlined. High gas sentries are warped in first, allowing for more energy buildup and also a quick nexus. Then finally 2 rounds of stalkers and you are good to crush their expo.

Alejandrisha, or anyone who has been using this, do you ALWYAS poke up the ramp? and how does it fair against a 3 rax. If you see a big all in push coming, do you always give up the expo and go 1 base colossus?

On March 09 2011 07:01 W2 wrote:I guess this is similar to a 3 gate expo except it delays the nexus for an earlier timing. My question is, does this earlier timing help a whole lot to be worth delaying your nexus?

Because the normal 3gate expo seems to be so streamlined. High gas sentries are warped in first, allowing for more energy buildup and also a quick nexus. Then finally 2 rounds of stalkers and you are good to crush their expo.

I find the timing is definitely worth delaying the nexus. You will always get your nexus up after a terran gets his CC mining if he is doing a 2 racks expand (with gas ofc). Instead of taking this lying down, you delay your nexus maybe a minute or 2 but you delay his expansion for up to 4 minutes.

This can be tricky though. Some terrans will do 2 racks expo into 3 rax -> reactored starport and have medivacs a little before the 9 minute mark and you definitely don't want to be at his nat when he starts elevatoring units down. I've tried going 3 gate - pressure - nexus - robo but you don't get the obs to his base in time to see the medivacs start shuttling units down so you should probably leave and let him expand at about 8:30 or so just to be safe. In the meantime, you have your expansion up before his and are beginning colossus production or getting charge or your 2 forges are upgrading.

On March 09 2011 07:34 milfhunter wrote:Alejandrisha, or anyone who has been using this, do you ALWYAS poke up the ramp? and how does it fair against a 3 rax. If you see a big all in push coming, do you always give up the expo and go 1 base colossus?

This build does absolute work to a 3 rax. If they are streaming units down the middle like they usually do, you can pick them off with your faster stalkers. If they wait for a timing, you can smash that army given adequate forcefields. The only pressure that worries me with this is proxied maurader pressure, but this can be fended off with probes.. though it does suck to have to pull them.

Also I've run into some terrans pulling all scvs and hitting with just a couple of marines.. although this sounds stupid, you only have 1 sentry and a stalker when it comes and your 2nd sentry is no where near being finished. This would be cleaned up with good scouting (in the middle of the map, they will deny scouting at the ramp) and cutting sentries for the MANLY units so to speak xD

edit: oops missed this part. you should definitely poke up the ramp. lead with your zealot(s) and see what you need too see. worst case scenario you'll lose a zealot. nbd ^^

Thanks Alejandresha, but if they are not coming down at all and is not expanding, would you poke up the ramp? I ask because I don't know of any other way ot knowing if they are going to tech to banshee or a raven for polt.